BJP supporters celebrate NDA victory in Bihar(L), A Janata Dal (United) supporter reacts while celebrating the party's lead in the Bihar Assembly elections
Credit: PTI Photos
Patna: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) stunned all the pollsters and scored a landslide victory in Bihar wresting 204 seats out of the 243 constituencies. This four-fifths majority is close to the 2010 Assembly election result when the NDA had won 206 seats, a record which remains unbroken ever since the State was bifurcated in 2000.
This was also Nitish Kumar’s fifth consecutive win as head of the Government in the State, yet another record of sorts for the man who has been at the helm of affairs since November 2005, barring a nine-month hiatus when Jitan Ram Manjhi was CM for a short span.
Proving all political pundits wrong, the Nitish-led NDA sprung a massive surprise on Friday when the JD (U) won 84 seats out of 101 it contested, almost double it won in 2020. However, the BJP was the chief architect of the landslide, winning 92 out of 101 seats it contested. The LJP (R) won 19, Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM 5 and Upendra Kushwaha fledgling outfit Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) wrested four seats, thereby taking the total to 204. The half-way mark is 122 in the 243-member House.
The mother of all surprises was the complete rout of the Mahagatbandhan which could win merely 33 seats. The CM face of the Opposition alliance, Tejashwi Yadav, himself scraped through in Raghopur at the last moment after trailing for long in the initial rounds. His alliance partner – the Congress and the CPI-ML - too fared poorly with winning five and two seats respectively. The CPM won one, taking the Mahagatbandhan tally to 33, including RJD’s 25 seats.
Amidst saffron wave, Md Shahabuddin’s son Osama Shahab, making his poll debut as the RJD nominee, somehow romped home from Raghunathpur in Siwan.
WINNING SPREE
The BJP had every reason to cheer as its both the Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Sinha won from Tarapur and Lakhisarai respectively. The folk singer Maithili Thakur, the 25-year-old youngest BJP candidate, won from Alinagar in Darbhanga.
“This is a trust reposed by all sections of the society in the leadership of Nitish who has worked across caste and religion lines, and initiated welfare measures for all, including women,” said Nitish’s closet aide and Union Minister Lallan Singh.
The minister was in the news recently after an FIR was registered against him while he was campaigning for the jailed JD (U) candidate Anant Singh in Mokama. Incidentally, Anant Singh too won despite being behind bars.
Huge celebrations continued at the BJP and the JD (U) office on Beer Chand Patel Marg ever since the first lead indicated the NDA landslide. “More than MY (Muslim-Yadav), it was ME - Mahila and EBC (Extremely Backward Class), which worked in Nitish’s favour. The Rs 10,000 sop to women, followed by an advertisement at the last minute that the amount has not to be refunded, turned the tide in Nitish’s favour. The EBCs, who have been the biggest beneficiary of Nitish’s welfare schemes including reservation in jobs, too rooted for the JD (U) strongman who was termed as ‘weak and ill’ during the elections. This unflinching trust in Nitish was one reason why the NDA secured around 49 percent votes, while the Mahagatbandhan was restricted to 38 percent votes,” said the social scientist Ajay Kumar.
Notably, Prashant Kishor’s much-hyped Jan Suraaj and Mukesh Sahani’s VIP scored a duck.